the State are powerless to resist; they are trampled completely down.

It is impossible to here review in detail all the transactions of the legislature since 1868. Besides the schemes for corruption above mentioned, there have been very many others. Nothing has been safe from the taint. Bribery has been necessary to secure the passage of almost every bill. Railroad legislation has been a stench in honest men's nostrils. The pay certificates of the legislature have even been abused. The speaker of the House has issued these certificates to the amount of more than a million dollars, while the legitimate demand for them has not amounted to $150,000. They have been spread broadcast. The refurnishing of the new State House cost hardly $50,000, but a bill for $95,000 was presented. Members of the legislature, both black and white, publicly threatened that unless they received sums which they named they would vote against certain bills. A governor stands charged by men of his own party with spending nearly four hundred thousand dollars of the public money to get himself re-chosen. A bill to establish a militia became a gigantic "job." The whole course of legislation in the State tended to a tyranny which is absolute, and which is

all the more dreadful because the deluded ignoramuses who make up the body of the assemblies are not aware that they are doing anything especially blameworthy. They look upon it as a normal condition, and intend to keep it up as long as there is anything left.

Columbia has been the capital of South Carolina since 1790. It occupies a high and commanding position in the center of the State, and is but one hundred and thirty miles from Charleston. It borders upon the Congaree River, near the mouth of the Saluda, in the heart of a rich cotton region. The water power which might be made available in its immediate vicinity is much superior to that of most of the New England manufacturing towns; and the canal near by, was purchased from the State several years ago by Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island; but no cotton factories have as yet arisen along the banks. The town is one of the most beautiful in the South; its climate rivals that of Italy; and the broad, richly shaded avenues; the gardens filled with jessamines and japonicas, laurels and hawthorns and hollys, and the perfect groves in which the live-oaks, the pines, the magnolias, and the wild-oranges, vie with each other in charm, give it an especial fascination. Columbia arose out of

the ashes in which the war laid it with a sorrowful but reliant air; and if its people had not been weighted down by the incubus of an ignorant and dishonest government, they would have done more even than they already have toward rebuilding. The little city, which now has about 12,000 inhabitants, is on the through route from Charlotte in North Carolina to Augusta in Georgia, and also sends its commercial influence into the north-western counties, along the line of the Greenville and Columbia railroad, on which Newberry and other thriving towns are located. It has also an excellent connection with Wilmington on the North Carolina coast, via Sumter, a busy town, a short distance to the westward of Columbia. The counties of Richland, Sumter, Orangeburg, Lexington, and Clarendon, in the neighborhood of the capital, are exempt from the malaria of the lowlands, and cotton, corn and other cereals, grow superbly. The great conflagration at the time of the evacuation of the city by the Confederates swept away the government armory, the old State house, many manufactories, all the railway stations, a fine legislative library, St. Mary's College, many valuable collections of paintings the retreating Confederates destroyed the bridges over the river, and ruin reigned everywhere.

The exterior aspects of Columbia are to-day fair indeed. The venerable University (from which all the white professors and scholars retreated when the first black student was received,) nestles charmingly in the midst of a grand tree-dotted park; the State Lunatic Asylum, a noble building, is likewise embowered in a splendid shade; the city buildings and hotels are large, and in excellent taste; a fine United States Court-House is springing out of blocks of native granite; and the numerous private institutions of learning give the casual visitor the impression that he is visiting a "grove of Academe," rather than a perturbed and harassed capital. Many northern families have purchased fine estates in the neighborhood; at evening the avenues are crowded with splendid teams, whose owners drive to the parade ground, and loiter, while six companies of United States troops go stiffly through the prescribed drill, and the band thunders the hackneyed music.

But it is at the State house that one arrives at the truth. The mammoth building, which yet lacks the stately roof an!

cupola, some day to be given it, is furnished with a richness and elegance which not even the legislative halls of States an hundred times as rich can equal. In th poorly constructed and badly-lighted cor ridors below are the offices of the State officers, the Governor, the Treasurer, the Secretary of State, and the Superintendent of State Schools, and each and all of them are usually filled with colored people, discussing the issues of the hour. The Secretary of State, a mulatto, has entered the law school at the University, and carries on his double duties very creditably. In the House and Senate the negro element stands out conspicuous. On the occasion of my first visit I was shown into the room of the House Committee on the Judiciary for a few moments. While awaiting the assembling of the honorable members a colored gentleman, in a gray slouch hat, and a pair of spectacles, engaged me in conversation, and, as I inquired what was the present question which was exciting the patriotism and sacrifice of the virtuous members, he rolled up his eyes, and with a tragic air, said:

"Dars a heap o' bigness behin' de Carpet. heah, sar."

It was true, in more senses than one.

The House, when I visited it, was composed of eighty-three colored members, all of whom were Republicans, and forty-one whites; the Senate consisted of fifteen colored men, ten white Republicans, and eight white Democrats. The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, both colored, were elegant and accomplished men, highly educated, who would have creditably presided over any commonwealth's legislative assembly. In the House the negroes were of a much lower grade, and more obviously ignorant, than in the Senate. They were perpetually preventing the transaction of necessary busi

A SANDHILLER.

ness by "questions of privilege," and

66

points of order," of which, sometimes, as

many as an hundred are raised in a single day. It being an extra session they were endeavoring to make it last until the

time for the assembling of the regular one; and their efforts were astonishingly ludicrous. The little knot of white Democrats, massed together in one section of the hall, sat glum and scornful amid the mass of black speakers, some member only rising now and then to correct an error of "his friend" the colored man, who might have the floor. But some of the sable brethren were trying to the visitor's patience, even, and after I had heard one young man talk for a half hour upon the important subject of what his constituents would say if he allowed himself to be brow-beaten into an immediate adjournment, it was with difficulty that I could suppress a yawn. This youth said the same thing over and over again; his voice was, from time to time, heard rising above the general hum, reiterating exactly the words which he had said five minutes before. The negro does not allow himself to be abashed by hostile criticism. When he gets a sentence tangled, or cannot follow the thread of his own thought in words, he will gravely open a book, the statutes, or some other ponderous volume lying before him, and, after seeming to consult it for some minutes, will resume. has been gaining time for a new start. There are men of real force and eloquence among the negroes chosen to the House, but they are the exception. In the Senate there was more of decorum and ability among the members. Several of the colored senators spoke exceedingly well, and with great ease and grace of manner; others were awkward and lacked refinement. The white members, native and imported, appeared men of talent at least. The black pages ran to and fro, carrying letters and documents to the honorable senators; and a fine-looking quad roon, or possibly octoroon woman, accompanied by an ebony gentleman, were admitted to the floor of the Senate, and sat for some time listening to the debates.

To the careless observer it seems encouraging to see the negroes, so lately freed from a semi-barbaric condition, doing so well, because their conduct is really better than one would suppose them capable of, after having seen the constituency from which they were elevated. One cannot, of course, hinder some reflections upon vengeance and retribution from drifting into his mind, it was, doubtless, to be expected that some day the negro would lord it over his master, as the law of compensation is immutable, but there

He

A NEGRO POLICEMAN.

is danger in the protraction of this vengeance. We must really see fair play. Ignorance must not be allowed to run riot. If we saw it consummating, as a Commune assembled in Paris, one thousandth part of the infamy which it effects as a legislature in South Carolina, we should cry out angrily that interference must be had.

But this is an epoch of transition. When the negro is a little older as a politician, he will be less clannish. The masses of the blacks will divide more fully into parties. Then there will be some chance for the setting aside of the dreadful question of race against race. At present the blacks in the State move solidly together. Their eyes are fixed on the spoils which the white men have taught them to gather. They have not yet begun to understand that in stripping the State, compromising her credit and blackening her reputation, they injure themselves much more than they harm their old masters. They will learn in time that they have committed a grave error in allowing the whites to be virtually excluded from representation, and that both races will be forced to labor together, honestly and faithfully, to save

the State, and to insure their own future prosperity.

I visited the University a day or two after the revolution caused there by the entrance of the first colored student, the Secretary of State himself. In the library, where the busts of Calhoun and Hayne seemed to look down from their niches with astonishment upon the changed order of things, I saw the book from whose lists the white students had indignantly erased their names when they saw the Secretary's round, fair script beneath their own. The departure of the old professors and scholars was the signal for a grand onward movement by the blacks, and a great number entered the preparatory and the low schools. They have summoned good teachers from the North, and are studying earnestly. The University attained its present title in 1866. It was founded as a college at the beginning of the century, but now consists of ten distinct schools, and is rich in libraries and apparatus for scientific studies. While I was in the library, a coal black senator arrived, with two members of the House, whom he presented to the head of the faculty as desirous of entering the law class. I was informed that dozens of members were occupied every spare moment outside of the sessions in faithful study; but this has been the case for a short time only.

But the educational prospects throughout the State, except in the large towns,

are not very good. In 1873, the schools were much cramped for resources. Not a cent of an appropriation of these three hundred thousand dollars for educational purposes, made in that year, reached the schools, and great numbers of them were closed. The difficulty of obtaining good teachers has also been very great. Charleston has had a fine school system for many years. Another High School there, an excellent institution, has been established since 1839. The local school tax for 1873 was nearly $45,000. There are about twentyfive hundred white children in the public schools, and about the same number of colored pupils, for whom separate accommodations are provided. One single edifice for the black has room for a thousand scholars. Four colored schools are supported in Charleston by Northern funds : the Shaw Memorial, a large and efficient institution, assisted by the New England Freedmen's Aid Society; the Wallingford Academy, by the Presbyterian Church North; the Avery Institute, by the American Missionary School Association; and the Franklin street High Scool, by the Episcopal Church North. All the city free schools are considered exceedingly good. The Normal School in Charleston has a fine edifice, and is sending out some excellent teachers. The Peabody Fund has given aid here and there throughout the State to great advantage. There are, at least, two hundred thousand children in the Commonwealth; and it is safe to assert that not more than seventy-five thousand have been afforded school facilities. Charleston county shows an attendance of nearly 8,000; in the other coast counties there has latterly been a large decrease in scholastic attendance. On the Sea Islands there are still some schools. An educational effort was first made there in 1862, and the school originally established in St. Helena is still in existence, supported by Philadelphia societies. At one time there were twenty schools on St. Helena Island alone, supported by Northern funds. But now that this aid has been generally withdrawn, education there languishes. The school tax of three mills on the dollar would serve very well, if the State's affairs were not so wretchedly confused, and the pay of the teachers so uncertain. The corruption in the legislative halls demoralizes even the free school system, which the negro once so longed for, as the lever which was to lift him up to happiness.

Columbia, Beaufort, the mountain towns of any size, and the shire towns of the upland counties, take much interest in the free school system, and encourage it as their means will permit.

The private institutions of learning in Charleston and the State are remarkably excellent. Few cities can boast of better medical colleges than that in Charleston. It was first incorporated half a century ago, and had a brilliant career until the late war, during which it was nearly ruined. The Roper Hospital, which adjoins it, is a fine institution. Charleston is divided into health districts, over each of which a physician is appointed, with orders to give daily attendance upon the poor. This was a much needed charity, since the mortality among the negroes who came flocking into the city after the war was fearful, and the blacks neglect themselves, unless looked after, until it is too late to heal them. The burden of charity is by no means small. The alms-house has more than sixteen hundred regular "out-door pensioners," that is, poor residents who receive "rations, or half-rations," regularly. The city and main hospitals are filled with colored patients, who are cheerfully cared for at the city's expense. Charleston is jealous of her sanitary reputation, and each successive year that passes without bringing the yellow fever only makes her more vigilant in the matters of her tidal drainage, her well-ordered markets, her cleanly docks, and her careful supervision of the personal health of her citizens.

Two of the noted institutions of Charleston are a little fallen into decay, but are still interesting. The Military Academy, a quaint, mauresque building, has become the headquarters for the United States troops quartered in the city; and its splendid school is broken up. The Charleston College is still in operation. It was chartered in 1795, and has graduated many distinguished men. The establishment of the museum of natural history at the college was first suggested by Agassiz in 1850, and it is to-day, although a portion of the collection was burned in war-time, one of the finest in the country. The libraries of the private institutions are good, but Charleston greatly needs a public one, such as all the eastern cities possess.

The development of South Carolina presents an interesting problem for solution. It seems, now, as if the system of large plantations were the only one under which

rice culture can be successfully pursued. Yet the freedmen yearly manifest stronger disinclination for work in gangs on other people's land, and desire to acquire small farms, and to live independently, however rudely. It is singular that some of them have not developed the business capacity requisite to establish large plantations of their own, and to influence their fellows to work well with them on a coöperative basis.* The wealth in the great pine forests cannot be made available until some one besides the negro goes to work in them. The Sea Island cotton lands are certainly very unlikely to get the needed recuperation by much effort on the part of the negro. A new element of immigration must be had; but it will not go to the State in its present political condition. Will, then, the State extricate herself from that position? There seems no hope of it, at present, perhaps not for four years. Cumulative voting has been advocated in the State for several years, and in 1870 the AttorneyGeneral and Gov. Scott professed to be strongly in favor of the adoption of that principle. If this plan, as suggested by Mr. Pike in his excellent book on the subject, or some other method of gaining protection for the rights of the minority, could be successfully adopted; and if Charleston could receive her just dues politically, the course of events would, in due time, be changed. Her phosphates, her railway connections, her cotton receipts, her manufactories cannot fail to make her rich; but that will not benefit the State, as she is at present situated. Very little reliance is to be placed on any hopes of immigration, save of families who are well-to-do, towards centers like Aiken and Columbia. The farmers in the upland regions are forcing their lands too harshly in their desperate. effort to make a great deal of cotton, and are neglecting the needed diversity of crops, so that they will, perhaps, be in distress. by and by. There are hundreds of superb chances for investment in the State which will never for a moment be considered by capitalists so long as the present unjust, tyrannical, centralized State Government maintains itself in office. It is a frightful incubus which drags down every earnest man who desires to make an effort at a rebound after the collapse caused by the war; it is a disgrace to our system; it is a stumbling-block to the negro; an embodied

There is, I am told, one highly prosperous colored settlement on the communal plan in Marlborough county.